Black screen on Affinity Photo - RESOLVED!

[EarlD]

Update:  Problem was resolved by turning off Nvidia Surround.  Thanks Dan C!

 

I’ve recently purchased Affinity Photo and have been exploring it on my laptop.  I also have a desktop system in my office with three monitors that I’d like to actually use Affinity Photo on.  Unfortunately, after many attempts to install it, all I get is a black screen.

Some observations:

 The program installs without any errors or problems.

When run, the splash screen appears, “loading fonts” is displayed in the lower right corner, then disappears.

No menus of any kind appear!  The screen is totally black.

Task manager reports the program is running.  CPU is 30%, Memory is below 60%.

Pressing Ctrl-O opens the file open dialog.  I can select a photo to open and it’s name will appear in the popup when I hover over the task bar icon.  I can also close the file with Ctrl-W.

I’m using the current version of Affinity Photo (1.10.5.1342).

Windows 10 is up to date.

There is lots of disk space available.

Graphics Driver is up to date.

Rebooted and restarted numerous times.

No other applications are active.

I’ve closed the anti-virus programs.

I’ve scoured the forum and the internet and found nothing that helps.

AFFINITY DESIGNER runs with no problems at all on this machine.

All help and suggestions will be appreciated.

[Pšenda]

HW Acceleration is off? (In preferences)

[Dan C]

Hi @EarlD,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble!

Can you please check the following list of known issues with third party applications and confirm if any of these, or similar, are installed?

For example, the issue you've described sounds very similar to when DuetDisplay is running.
Are you able to provide a screenshot of the Affinity app when opened on your PC also?

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, Dan C said:

For example, the issue you've described sounds very similar to when DuetDisplay is running.

Would this affect only one application (APhoto)? ADesigner is said to work without problems.

[EarlD]

2 hours ago, Pšenda said:

HW Acceleration is off? (In preferences)

Thanks for the response. Cannot find anything concerning HW acceleration on my system

[Pšenda]

2 minutes ago, EarlD said:

Cannot find anything concerning HW acceleration on my system

It is in Application preferences.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Pšenda

[EarlD]

1 hour ago, Dan C said:

Hi @EarlD,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble!

Can you please check the following list of known issues with third party applications and confirm if any of these, or similar, are installed?

 

Thanks for the response.  The list pointed me to Nvidia Surround.  I turned that off and Affinity Photo now runs properly!  I'm a happy camper.

 

[Dan C]

Glad to hear this, many thanks for letting me know!

[EarlD]

6 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

It is in Application preferences.

Thanks again.  I could not get to the Preferences because of the black screen.  After getting the program running I checked and it's turned off as in your photo.